Sea Slugs as Brilliant Indicators of Climate Change in Central California

This project examines whether rocky intertidal nudibranchs (brightly colored shallow-water mollusks also known as sea slugs) can be used as fine-scale indicators of inter-annual and decadal-scale climate variability. As part of this research, biologists offer a partial explanation for an observed decline in sea slugs off Central California, and document the climate-induced range shift of one particularly aggressive predatory “killer” sea slug and its effect on intertidal ecology at Duxbury Reef in Marin County. Field studies have led to the discovery of two new species of sea slugs.